The hunt for the next editor of The New York Times Magazine is entering the home stretch, Capital has learned.

Sources familiar with the process said the search has been narrowed down to a handful of internal and external candidates and that a decision is expected in a matter of weeks.

These candidates have been in "serious discussions" recently, sources said, including one-on-one dinners and lunches with Times managing editor Dean Baquet, who is overseeing the search along with Deborah Needleman, the editor of sister title T.

Capital has confirmed that there are three internal candidates, including deputy Times Magazine editors Joel Lovell and Lauren Kern, who have been the most senior staffers on the masthead since the departure late last year of Hugo Lindgren.

Early speculation had centered on familiar Times faces such as Bruce Headlam, Sam Sifton and Jodi Kantor, but the newsroom gossip turned out to be just that.

Executive editor Jill Abramson had originally said she would name a new editor before the end of 2013. But she subsequently announced on December 19 that she would take her time naming Lindgren's successor while Needleman and Baquet worked on a rethinking of the magazine for three months.

"I owe you more clarity on how the magazine relates to the rest of our news report and how it can be the most distinctive, edifying, pleasurable part of our news offerings," Abramson told staff, echoing some of the issues Capital had addressed in a feature about the magazine a few days earlier.

Lindgren, meanwhile, was recently named acting editor of The Hollywood Reporter.